2009 Texas Bigfoot Conference

The 2009 Texas Bigfoot Conference in Tyler, Texas promised exciting guests, some interesting topics, a great vendor area, and a lot of fun, which it didn’t fail to deliver on any count. The event took place on Saturday, 9/26/09, with around 425 people from California to Maine in attendance for the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy’s (TBRC) annual event. The event featured 12 fascinating speakers and a retail area with some unique and exciting merchandise. The exciting day was rounded out with a dinner featuring Peter Matthiessen, world-famous naturalist and two time National Book Award winner. The event also featured Bob Gimlin, of the famous Patterson-Gimlin film, as a special guest.



In addition to Peter Matthiessen the list of speakers was an impressive one. The morning speakers were Daryl Colyer and Jerry Hestand, both TBRC investigators, and Alton Higgins, a biologist with TBRC. The afternoon was action packed with speakers Robert Swain, artist, Esteban Sarmiento, primate biologist, Chris Bader and Carson Mencken, both sociologists, John Bindernagel and John Mionczynski, both wildlife biologists and TBRC advisors, Bill Dranginis, developer of the “Eye Gotcha” wildlife camera, and Loren Coleman, cryptozoologist and author. The lectures ranged on topics from new technology used in the field to the role of environmental conditions on sightings. There were also many personal stories and reports of sightings sprinkled throughout many of the presentations. The controversial subject of turning Bigfoot into a profitable business venture was even broached.



This year the event featured a large vendor area that had everything from high-tech gear and art to books and dog treats. Not to miss out on the fun, Believe It Tour was at the conference with a table full of exciting new merchandise. We even had a special Texas t-shirt to commemorate the conference. We had a great time talking to everyone that stopped by our table and appreciated the opportunity to meet with some of our Believe It Tour fans who followed our recent 2009 CA tour.

The day was rounded out with a fundraising dinner at the Tyler Discovery Science Place. The dinner gave everyone the chance to mingle on a more casual level and all of the speakers were extremely accessible and happy to talk to people about a subject close to their hearts. After the dinner Peter Matthiessen regaled the audience with a number of fascinating stories during his presentation.

The crowd at the event was a mix of old friends and a number of new faces, which made for an exciting time and no one was quite ready for the day to end. I think I can speak for a lot of people when I say I can’t wait for the 10th annual Texas Bigfoot Conference next year.

Bigfoot Afoot in New York

Recently, I wrote about the possible Bigfoot sighting in Kentucky that has garnered a good deal of media attention. The coverage started when an image was captured from a motion sensing camera that seemed to indicate something besides a bear was raiding a Fairdale man’s vegetable garden. However, what the creature was is still a mystery.

Now I’m a California native that spent the first part of my life in Northern CA. As most of you know that area is a positive hot bed of Bigfoot sightings and other encounters. Needless to say, the idea of Bigfoot residing in the pristine wilderness of CA seemed very reasonable to me having personally spent a lot of time in the Sierras and always hearing stories about the cryptid’s existence. However, while doing some background research on my recent article I accidentally discovered something rather interesting about the area I now live in.

I have recently relocated to the East coast and never really gave much thought to the West coast Bigfoot perhaps having a New York relative. Well, when I was going through some books and doing an internet search I discovered that New York actually has a fairly large number of reported Bigfoot incidents. According to Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO), out the 50 states, New York ranks as the top 9th state in number of sightings with 95 reports. This is a little less than the top two states listed, which were Washington with 467 reported incidents and California with 414.

There was even a book published in 2008 that explores some of the reported sightings in New York. The book entitled “Bigfoot Encounters in New York and New England” by Robert and Paul Bartholomew explores Bigfoot in Native American folklore through modern day encounters and then documents some of the more interesting sightings. The Bartholomew brothers have spent the last 30 years searching for Bigfoot in the area and this book is a culmination of their research.

A few months ago I discovered while watching the national news that I lived in an area that had some fairly extraordinary Black Panther sightings. See my previous blog about the Black Panthers in Rockland County. Now it would seem I find myself in the middle of possible Bigfoot territory. I guess it’s safe to say I live in a prime region for a variety of cryptozoology encounters.

I’ll have to make sure I keep my eyes open and my camera handy just in case I spy the large furry creature known as Bigfoot lurking in my backyard or peeking in my kitchen window.

What was in Kentucky? Bigfoot or a Bear

It would seem Kentucky may be home to more than a famous horse race with a recent sighting of Bigfoot being reported. The exciting cryptozoology news has even been reported by outlets like CNN.

This summer Kenny Mahoney, a Fairdale home owner, noticed his once flourishing garden was disappearing at a rapid rate, so he decided to use some technology to catch the culprit. Mahoney decided to set up a motion camera in his yard to see if he could figure out what was raiding his garden. Image his surprise when he reviewed the images and saw a large black hairy creature. Mahoney estimated the creature to be well over 6 feet tall and it didn’t resemble any animal he’d ever seen before.

According to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO), Kentucky has had 63 reports of Bigfoot sightings or incidents since 1950. Fairdale, which is in Jefferson County and south of Louisville, had one incident in 1971 where strange noises and howls were reported.

Mahoney has a hard time believing Bigfoot is visiting his backyard, but he has no idea what exactly the mysterious creature might be. The photo has been sent to a wildlife expert to analyze and determine what was caught on film.

It would appear that Mahoney certainly did have an unusual visitor to his backyard, but was it really Bigfoot or was it another more innocuous creature like a bear or maybe another type of primate?

What was that in the Sky over China?

On July 22, 2009, Chinese scientists and students captured on film something mysterious flying in the skies over China during the recent solar eclipse. From the few photographs being released it’s fairly safe to say it wasn’t a bird, plane, or even Superman.

Scientists from the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanjing are puzzled over what they saw and the resulting images that were obtained by the scientists and students observing the solar eclipse. Researchers will spend the next year analyzing the 40 minutes of footage and numerous photographs to try to determine what the object was. The observatory’s director, Ji Hai-sheng, has stated that scientists will not publically speculate on what the unidentified object might be until they have analyzed all data. The July event was just the latest in a series of unidentified sightings that have been reported in China.

The question remains as to what was seen in China? Was it an anomoly caused by the solar eclipse, a commercial airplane that had an unusal refection due to the solar event, or something truly unidentified that might indicate life exists elsewhere?

Is 09/09/09 a Curse or a Blessing?

Is tomorrow with its three nines, 09/09/09, going to be a cause for celebration or cause to stay at home and hide under the covers? The jury is still out on this apparently auspicious or inauspicious numerological day.

In the United States many retailers and even some county governments are capitalizing on the good luck aspect of the number nine. Everything from movie releases to specials on getting married will be offered to take advantage of the good fortune associated with the number 9. Another significant aspect to tomorrow is that it will be the last time, for almost a century, that we will see a set of repeating, single-digit dates.

In China the number nine is considered to be the second luckiest number behind eight and holds a prominent place in the history of the country. The number can be found prominently displayed in many architectural features. Historically it’s also been incorporated, though intricate design elements, into the clothing of emperors and warriors.

However, Japan has a different take on the number 9 and in that country the number is considered extremely unlucky. The word for nine in Japanese sounds the same as the word for suffering even though it has a different spelling. It’s also an element that many architects have completely eliminated in their building plans due to its unlucky connotations.

Many numerologists believe the number nine has a mix of positive and negative traits. On the positive side it represents compassion, forgiveness, and success. However, the flip side is that it’s associated with arrogance, resentment, and self-righteousness. The number 9 is also considered very spiritual and holistically balanced as it represents the cycle of gestation and birth.

Regardless of what popular opinion is on the number nine, at the end of the day tomorrow you’ll have to be the one to decide if 9 was your lucky number or not.

The Search for England's Lake Monster

According to a recent story in The Westmoreland Gazette a search is being mounted this month to the find England’s famed lake monster. The creature, known as Bownessie, allegedly lives in the depths of Lake Windermere. Lake Windermere is the largest fresh water lake in England at 11miles in length. Windermere is interested as it’s a long, narrow ribbon lake, which is a lake formed from the ice age through the glaciation period. This always leads to speculation that some ancient creatures became trapped when the lake was formed.

A search team will undertake the task of locating the creature begins on September 19, 2009. The team will include Dean Maynard, a celebrity psychic, and photographer Linden Adams. In 2006 Linden was the first photographer to capture the lake monster with his camera, which further supported a sighting a university professor, Steve Burnip, had ealier that year. Bownessie has been spotted many times over the years, but has proven as elusive as the world famous Loch Ness Monster.

Will the team find Bownessie or will the creature remain as mysterious as Bigfoot or the Yeti?

Chupacabra – The Response

Well, it would seem the man who rocked the cryptozoology world with his recent discovery and has been reveling in the media attention has decided the resulting frenzy is just too much. While it seems obvious that a possible discovery of this nature would generate a huge public response it apparently wasn’t so obvious when the announcement was first made.

Jeff Ayer, the Texas man who is in possession of an alleged chupacabra, is being overwhelmed by national and international attention over the creature he has. The non-stop media coverage his discovery has generated has inundated Ayer to the point that he isn’t currently offering classes at the Blanco taxidermy school he owns.

While Ayer first said he might actually have found the mythical beast he’s now stating he thinks it may just be a genetically abnormal coyote and not a chupacabra. Although he still insists he will preserve it and donate the creature to a museum. However, one can’t help, but wonder if this is truly what Ayer thinks or if he is just saying it’s not a chupacabra to divert the current frenzy surrounding him. Time will tell.